PNB Public Notice on Prank Calls
Public Notice
CATHEDRAL HOUSE
3 GLOUCESTER STREET
FREETOW SIERRA LEONE, WEST AFRICA
29th November, 2017
Pay No Bribe (PNB) is a programme designed to involve you, the citizens of Sierra Leone in the everyday reporting of petty corruptionin order to increase the accountability of service providers to the public.
It has come to the attention of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) that large numbers of people, including school children are making prank phone calls to the Pay No Bribe (PNB) 515 freeline. Often, these calls are abusive in nature. Of the total number of calls made to the call centre, only eighteen (18%) percent result in a PNB report; whilst eighty two(82) percent of the calls are people making enquiries or prank and abusive calls. This is not only alarming but unacceptable.
The 515 freeline is intended to enable public reporting of petty corruption and bribery taking place across the country within the Ministries of Education and Health, Sierra Leone Police, and the Water and Power utility companies. It is an important service that will lead to greater openness and accountability within the public sector by allowing MDAs to act on reports received.
Prank calls are an abuse and waste people’s time. It also means that large numbers of genuine callers cannot get through to the call centre operators to make their report known. The operators report that many of the prank callers are children, who will call persistently over several hours and are possibly using their parent’s phones. To all parents, we ask that you please discourage your children from abusing the PNB service in this way.
We are therefore both requesting and warning any person who abuses the PNB platform that stern action will be taken in future to deal with them.
PNB is led by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Office of the Chief of Staff, with support from UK Aid.
END.
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NABILLAHI-MUSA KAMARA
PROGRAM MANAGER, PAY NO BRIBE CAMPAIGN